[SOLVED] Baxandall tone control

[Mandella]

My Cambridge Audio Azur 340A home amp has a very weak tone control.
I want to increase the range for bass and treble to around +- 14db.
Can you help suggesting new R and C values but leaving the 20k pot in place.

Your help would be much appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[Audioguru]

Why do you want such a huge range? 14dB is a lot of boost. If your tweeters are half decent then they might be destroyed and the poor woofers will exceed their normal amount of throw.
Oh, you want to turn down the tone controls so that everything sounds like a telephone?
Maybe you have a geetar speaker that has a huge peak at 5kHz? But if you turn down the treble then all high frequencies will be gone.

Here is what you want:

 

[Mandella]

Thanks Audioguru. I'm old and love my sizzling treble and feel the bass in my stomach. Probably won't use the full range but it's good to have it.
I'm off to the electronics shop

 

[kam1787]

Why do you want such a huge range? 14dB is a lot of boost. If your tweeters are half decent then they might be destroyed and the poor woofers will exceed their normal amount of throw.

..... love my sizzling treble and feel the bass in my stomach

As AudioGuru stated, you might end up destroying your tweeters, and your woofers might have a hernia.

If you love heart-massaging bass, a good sub-woofer will work wonders.

 

[Mandella]

Hi Audioguru and Kam,
It works just as I expected. The tweeters sizzle and the woofers punch the air. An all new music experience on my Paradigm Monitors, close enough to the original in the Jazz club.
No woofer hernia and no blown tweeter but I only turn the tone controls not quite half way which gives me a lot more bass and treble response than on the original at full. Coming to think of it, I discovered a few cold soldering points when I changed the components; the treble control never really did much at all when compared how it is now.
Maybe it's just my old ears

Thanks for the time you put in Audioguru, much appreciated.

 

[Audioguru]

Hee, hee. I am also old. I do not have a sub-woofer, instead I built this bass-boost circuit.

Paradigm Monitors? I went to their factory and bought some of their crossover coils for the speakers I was making. My speakers sounded WRONG. I measured the inductance of their coils and it was not what they were labelled.
I went back to their factory with a pink noise generator and a sound spectrum analyser and showed them that the speakers they were making with those coils measured and sounded AWFUL!
Their bad sounding speakers sure look nice.

 

[kam1787]

It is probably pointless to try to convert curmudgeons [smile] But if you give a real try to listening to a 'neutral' sound system you just might find you enjoy the music more.

My generation loves the heart-thumping bass [and horribly sweet wine and muscle cars] so when I built a neutral sound system I was disappointed at first. The first week! Then I began to appreciate the music as originally produced - without exaggerating the bass,

Kinda like going from 'Baby Duck' wine to a fine Mosel.

Would you re-paint a Rembrandt? Would you re-style an Armani suit?

 

[Mandella]

I do get your point, Kam.
But have you ever listened to, say life jazz, then went home and listened to the same pieces of music on your stereo?
I have and I do set the sound controls to the same, admittedly subjective, sound experience.
When I turn tone control off or flat it just isn't like the original.
There are however situations when I use flat, like conversations on radio or TV.
I admit that my experience is subjective and that my progressing age with the associated decline in high frequency perception may tempt me to increase treble more than a 20 year old would. Percussion, thimbles, etc just sound a lot more defined to me with treble up a fair bit.
Life music is generally a lot louder than I hear it at home, so the physical experience of feeling the bass on my body, which is part of the experience, is diminished. So I turn up the bass until it "feels" right.

I wouldn't repaint the Rembrand but I would sure play with the light to make it look best to my liking.

Audioguru, when I bought my Pardpadidm Monitors about 10 years ago in a HiFi shop they where outstanding when compared, directly, per speaker switchboard, flat amp, with their competitors in a similar price range. Again, probably subjectively.

Guys, I know that audio perception always has a degree of subjectivity, just like red wine. So I'm quite happy to be a "curmudgeon" in this area. And I do enjoy the conversation.